Church overload in the Golden Ring.
Today we leave Moscow for the Golden Ring towns. Even though many of the stops along the way are going to be major cities it still feels as though this is the end of the easy part. The further east we push the less chance that anyone other than my two travel partners will speak English, building language skills with a few words of the day does not really begin to encompass the myriad of situations necessary to function on a daily basis. There are a number of planned stops that have only been open to outsiders for fifteen years and while sure to be interesting that fact alone is quite intimidating. Similar to Helsinki the feeling was one of going from the known and manageable into the unknown maybe heightened because the past two weeks had been such a fulfilling time.
After yesterday’s excursion to Sergiev Posad we were expecting the purchase of tickets for the train to be another long, painful process but after being corrected about which of Moscow’s many stations was the correct one by the ever helpful Dennis it could hardly have been simpler. Straight out of the metro stop the station loomed then signs to Vladimir section with English written underneath, some wonderful Cyrillic calligraphy by yours truly and three tickets were in our possessions within five minutes. The train was a regional one again which means wooden benches to accommodate six people. Over three hours this becomes somewhat uncomfortable but there was the constant distraction of hawkers to draw my attention away from our intrusive neighbours. Selling everything from magazines to kitchen utensils to tasers it was an unrelenting stream at times backed up three deep as they waited their turn to launch into their elaborate sales pitch trying to interest their extremely bored audience.
Nature always wins.
With the leg down from St Petersburg having taken place predominantly at night this was also the first real opportunity to spend some quality time gazing out the window at the passing countryside. At least once it emerged from the seemingly endless parade of identical box apartment buildings which merged into a mass of smokestacks. Life seems to be attracted to the corridor of train tracks in much the same way as to a river with groups of people lounging on the banks alongside, using the open space to burn small piles of rubbish, or just as a direct way of walking. Small stations came and went, always with clusters of unsmiling people who often appeared to be doing little else than just waiting for the train to arrive and see who or what was coming or going.
With darkness rapidly approaching the second bus turned onto the main road of Suzdal. The second bus because the one that we had finally managed to obtain tickets for had terminated at a huge, disintegrating station in the middle of a bunch of paddocks. It must have been the local taxi drivers who lobbied for this site as the route had passed by within touching distance of the town before ending up here resulting in yet another wait to get to our destination as anxiety levels rose due mainly to not actually having anywhere to stay yet. Apparently a really big hostel from Moscow is mere weeks away from opening one here but until then the only option is a converted monastery which seriously stretched our incredulity as well as Russian ability. For more than we paid combined for hostels we got a cold room with no shower or even hot water. I think most of the money went into researching lurid patterns and how many could be used in one room.
Pattern to surface ratio 1:1
Suzdal as a town is a good example of taking a theme and maximising it. In their case the theme chosen is churches and monasteries, at one stage in its history there was one church for every twelve people as well as another fifteen monasteries. Really how many churches can a place only eight kilometers square support and why, when you have one perfectly reasonable one do you need to build another only three metres away? It became a project to try and take a photo of all of them but it got too boring. While Arnika was watching the bell ringing at one of the monasteries Rdoc and I had an enjoyable walk around the picturesque outskirts enjoying the sunshine.
“Where do you think we should build the new one?”
As if forty odd churches in a day was not enough there was a four hour wait in Vladimir for our train and being a Golden Ring town the nature of the attractions was obvious. It has been noted many times already how if there is a statue or monument around there will invariably be a wedding party having photos taken. We are now at a stage where this feels like intruding on their moment as they always just carry on regardless of what is happening around them. It is pretty funny to watch the dynamics as they occur and can be summed up best by saying that if you are a TV producer the ultimate series of Bridezillas is here waiting to happen. In the photos the groom is irrelevant as his beloved poses it up while he waits holding the one pose with an extremely bored look on his face.
Tags: bus trip, Church/cathedral, Golden Ring, language, monastery, Russia, train
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